"Brown Saturday"

Can I coin this term? I didn't dare venture out on Black Friday, as I have little patience (and nowhere near the energy right now) for traffic, crowds or long lines. Instead, I decided to try my luck this morning and get in some birthday and Secret Santa shopping (DH and two of his sisters have birthdays coming up soon). I was amazed at a) how reasonable the traffic and crowds were, and b) how quickly I was overwhelmed by fatigue. I only went to two stores, but found myself resting in my parked car between stops. [Okay, I admit that's partially because it gave me an excuse to listen to more of my latest book on CD, Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. I'm about two-thirds of the way through and the action's getting pretty intense right now --- and I haven't seen the movie, so please don't spoil it for me!] I guess I'm still recuperating from Thanksgiving day, but it's probably also due to the fact that I was banned from exercise for a few weeks by my OB due to spotting (which has fully subsided now).

Anyhoo... one of the stores I stopped in was Babies 'R Us. The last time I was there (when I was about 9 weeks along), my visit was cut short and panicked as I discovered I was spotting heavily when I went to use the restroom. This time all was well (except for the fact that only the kiddie stall had any toilet paper -- I alerted Customer Service), and I spent as much time as energy allowed browsing through... well, everything. It was my first time in there shopping as an expectant mom (ooh!) and whoa was it overwhelming... but in a good way.

Two thoughts occurred to me after my reconnaissance visit:

1) Searching for a stroller already feels like buying a new car. We will seriously need to test drive and find one that will be comfortable for my and DH's 6' tall frames (and a car seat that will fit in the back seat of my Matrix; I worry this will be a problem since the front seats are set all the way back to accommodate our long legs).

2) This child will probably have his or her own real furniture (with a capital F) before DH and I will (we do have a new bed and a new china cabinet/buffet -- wedding gifts -- but otherwise all of our furniture is still the hodge-podge of hand-me-downs and random dorm room-esque acquisitions). However, there's one caveat: I've suggested we get a real couch since my futon-couch is not really cutting it now that my pregnant butt is spending much time convalescing on it in the evenings, usually watching old NCIS episodes.

Thanksgiving success

Yesterday DH and I went to his father's for dinner. For me, it was no ordinary Thanksgiving, as DH's dad had invited my parents too... all four of them. The only other time my mother, father, stepmother and stepfather had ever successfully spent an extended time all together was at our wedding seven months ago, and while I'd been delighted then beyond belief, I never imagined there would be a repeat performance.

In all, we had a table set for 14: me and DH, DH's dad and stepmother, my mom and stepfather, my father and stepmother, DH's paternal grandparents, my two sisters, DH's sister, and DH's stepsister. Lost yet?

We ate lots, watched football (yay Pats!) and got along great. I'm so proud of my parents; they're finally all growed up!

And I have to say, there's something to be said for being pregnant when you're family is together and everyone's psyched about it. While I felt like one of the hosts, and wanted to make sure that my side of the family was comfortable and settled in well after they arrived, very soon it seemed that everyone was making sure I was comfortable. I didn't have to take a "No, thank you" helping if I didn't want one, and no one was offended if I didn't finish everything on my plate (or if later I wanted seconds, or thirds). I could sit on the couch, put my feet up, and people brought me pillows. Everyone kept asking if I was feeling okay. Yes, I'll admit, I basked in the attention. Looks like my Pregnancy Rewards card is starting to pay dividends.

I had been wary of how the day would go; it would be a really long day (3 hour drive each way) and I didn't know which foods my tummy would tolerate and which it wouldn't. So it was great, and very helpful, to be reminded to pace myself and rest, especially, since I was so excited to see everyone, I felt at times I wanted to be in several places or conversations at once.

Overall, I did pretty well yesterday. I think my first trimester "sickness" symptoms are starting to wear off. I had to eat something substantial every couple of hours (had oatmeal in the morning when we got up, then a BK Croissan'wich while on the way there, then hors d'oeuvres, dinner, dessert, a turkey-and-cranberry sauce-on-toast sandwich just before we left, and a granola bar on the way home). I was glad to have managed to slip two "pigs in blankets" past my pregnancy radar before remembering they were mini hot dogs and therefore contraband -- oops, but yumma! I started to feel tired and a little headachy on the way home, but I was amazed to not feel too ill even though it was way past my bedtime. A Thanksgiving well played!

The best thing of all was getting to spend the holiday with my family (all parts of it, old and new, and all at once -- well, almost; DH's mom was with his other sisters several states away), and to have something wonderful to be thankful for and celebrate with them. It was a truly joyful day, and I am beyond grateful for it.

30-day blog challenge

So, I thought I'd try joining the 30-day blog challenge I came across when surfing other mommy-to-be and mommy blogs the other day. This particular challenge doesn't require a blog post every day, but we should strive for at least five days a week. I thought it might be a nice way to step up my game a bit and post about more than just my latest pregnancy update -- you know, maybe include a little about my thoughts about finally becoming a mother, or reflections on my TTC journey, or more notes about random silly stuff I find in life, or on the internet.

And so, it begins.

My bump has a name

Yes, that's right. My sister texted me a few weeks ago and asked if I had a bump yet, but she typed "yet" as "yetttt" (in Textese) and it got auto-corrected on her iPhone as Gertrude (???), so the text read "Do you have a bump Gertrude"... so from then on that's what we started to call it.

So, now it is my pleasure to introduce to you Gertrude the Bump, making her internet debut at 13 weeks!

PS. I can pretty much hide my bump under baggy sweaters, and can still button my coat, so it will be a while before I can really use it as a Pregnancy Rewards card.

Hopefully when I finally have a bump...

...I won't get Sir'ed as much any more - Gah!

Okay, so I'm tall. Six feet, to be exact. And cashiers are notorious for saying "Can I help you?" or "Will there be anything else?" before making eye contact. So I occasionally find myself the victim of a sales clerk's faulty assumption that anything that casts a large shadow over them must be male. "Can I help you, Sir?" usually gets no reaction from me (or a reaction where it's probably a good thing they didn't see it), so they are forced to actually look up and realize their folly.

Last night, though, I was at Chipotle (my BFF of fast-food restaurants these days: high carb content + stomach-friendly legumes and veggies = happy pregnant camper) and got Sir'ed by this girl. But when she looked up at me, she didn't seem to get that she'd made a mistake. I certainly gave her a quizzical look, kind of expecting some sort of reaction, but maybe she either didn't catch her mistake or figured it was best to move on and fuhgedaboudit. Of course then two thoughts ran through my head:

1) Do I look overly androgynous today? At which point I made sure to put my "man-purse" flagrantly on the counter as I rifled to find my wallet... and as I think about it now, that could have backfired (I have had to come to terms that the reason I'm finding more and more stilettos in my size online is more due to drag queens than evolutionary genetics)...

And,

2) Oooh, maybe once I get a real bump this won't happen to me any more (or at least for a few months of my life I can feel unambiguously female)!

But then again, maybe they'll think it's just a beer gut.

Such a sweet sound

Got to listen to the baby's heartbeat at my 12-week OB appointment yesterday. Dr. K held the doppler on my abdomen for a good 15 seconds or so. Seemed like such a long time compared to the two or three beats we heard at the NT scan last week. Such an amazing sound, yet still so incomprehensible to me. Fascinating. I can see why people buy dopplers to listen to the heartbeat at home. I'm tempted to do it, but I don't think I will. Plus, DH would think I'm ridiculous. But my next appointment isn't for another four weeks, and I doubt I'll be able to feel the baby kick before then, so the next month will be a true test of patience.

My plan is to "out" myself publicly at Thanksgiving, but my mini bump may have other ideas. I'm hoping I can keep up the disguise at work for another week, but I'm noticing that my belly is pushing at the insides of even my baggiest sweaters. It's kind of mirage-like, depending on how I move it's "now you see it, now you don't." So maybe I will accessorize with a clipboard or files when I walk around the office over the next few days.

In other news:

1) I'm home sick from work today, having developed a sore throat over the weekend and feeling a bit run down today. I went to a wedding last weekend, staying overnight in NYC along with some of DH's family (FIL's goddaughter got married), and I think I overdid it. I usually crash at home by 6:30 pm and that's the time the ceremony began. Ate lots of good food, but probably too much of a random mix. And then the hotel bed was as hard as a rock. Ah well, I still had a blast!

2) Being home today serves another convenient purpose -- now I don't have to lug a big orange jug around with me at work all day. Yup, it's time to produce that 24-hour urine sample. Fun times. Just have to make sure DH doesn't think I got him a new drink to try (I have to store it in the refrigerator).

3) Got my flu shot yesterday. Had the sore throat before the shot, so I hope they don't compound one another. But so far I only feel a little bit of soreness where the needle went in (which I didn't feel at all).

And now, it's nap time.

Just a pic...

Finally got the ultrasound scanned from Tuesday's appointment, so here it is! It's cute that the tech labeled this image "BABY." I'm pretty sure it's the baby's arms wiggling around in front of it's face (head to the right).

First Trimester Screening Results

Went for my NT ultrasound this morning... and all seems to be well! I'll cut to the chase and go over the numbers first, then add some flavor text at the end about our doctor's visit:

Since I already had blood work done previously, the genetic counselor was able to go over the numbers with us right away.

The nuchal fold at the back of the baby's neck measured 1.3 mm (totally normal), and they were able to locate the nasal bone.

Combining these physical results with the blood work (or something), they came up with the following assessment:

The baby's risk for Down Syndrome is 1:1,461 (way down from my initial risk of 1:74 due to my age).

The baby's risk for Trisomies 13 or 18 is 1:2,521 (down from 1:127).

Very reassuring numbers all around!

Since these results are so good, DH and I have decided to forego the CVS test. If something shows up on the Level II ultrasound (now scheduled for January 4), then we might opt for an amnio. But with these great numbers, we don't want to take the risk of doing an invasive test.

Talk about a big sigh of relief! I was really not looking forward to the CVS test. Call me strange, but for some reason getting a catheter threaded up my "hoo ha" is not on my "must do" Bucket List. The thought of being stuck with a really big needle in my abdomen is slightly more palatable, but really I'd much rather avoid either if I can, especially due to their risk of causing a miscarriage.

Some other notable things I learned at today's trip to the perinatologist:

1. My bladder is smaller than a Poland Springs water bottle. I drank the obligatory 24 ounces of water on my way to the appointment. But by time I got there, I already felt I had to pee like a racehorse. I begged the receptionist to let me get rid of some of it, which helped immensely (but oh, how hard it was to stop mid-empty!). I made it through the ultrasound with the tech all right, though I had to do Kegels every time she pressed down hard on my abdomen. Thing is, she wouldn't let me go to the restroom after she was done. "I'm going to get the doctor now and he needs to see you with a full bladder." Oh dear. Well, that didn't work so well. It took him almost a half of an hour to appear, so by about 15 minutes I was in pain. I urged DH to go ask if I could let some more go, and luckily he found someone who showed me the nearest bathroom. Now, if you thought it was hard to stop peeing the first time I went... I don't know how I managed this second time! But, luckily, I was able to keep enough liquid in there for the doctor to get the view he needed. Note to self: a 12-ounce bottle should be fine next time!

2. Apparently I am one of the 6.8 billion (human) freaks of nature inhabiting the earth. Talking to the genetic counselor today, I learned that I have a chromosomal abnormality, a paracentric inversion of chromosome 12. Basically it means that part of the chromosome is upside down (part of the long part of the chromosome), and on only one of the pair. What does this mean? As far as I can tell, not much. Since I'm fairly healthy overall, whatever got messed up in me hasn't manifest, and it doesn't look like it will affect the baby at all, either. What might be affected in the future, is conceiving future children, because if my inverted half of chromosome 12 is the one in my eggs, then it will have to do a flip to match up with DH's half of chromosome 12. I think. I may have totally botched that explanation, but even if it's not accurate the gist of it is true: my chromosome 12 needs to be good at gymnastics.

As for the "freaks of nature" comment above, that stems from a conversation I had with a friend today where she surmised that, likely, all of us have something screwy going on in our genetic makeup, but for the large part of us, it doesn't affect us in any tangible way.

3. I suffer from visions of grandeur. My perinatologist (i.e., high risk doctor) wants me to provide a 24-hour urine sample (due to my hypertension, they want a baseline of my kidney function for future reference). So they provided me with a rather large orange jug, in which I am to collect ALL of my urine during a 24 hour period of my choosing. Well, after the episode earlier where I was convinced that Niagara Falls was going to spew from my bladder, and knowing that I have always had to use the bathroom frequently throughout the day and night (even before getting pregnant), I thought that maybe one of these jugs wasn't enough. And since they said I needed to collect everything, I asked whether I needed a second jug. The nurse looked a little skeptical, but gave me a second one anyway. I soon became extremely self-conscious walking through the office hallways with two jugs, not the least because it seemed all of the staff were giggling at me (they were nice enough not to outright laugh). Okay, so maybe I won't need to pee all that much, but how should I know?! Stay tuned... ;)

Sorry for the uber-long post, but a lot happened today! I'll scan and post the new ultrasound pic tomorrow if I can.

NT scan tomorrow

Not much to report for this week, thankfully! Spotting has taken a hiatus (hopefully a long one), and I essentially just spent the week battling with food. Most of the time, the food won. I see food I like, and then it tastes great while I eat, but then somehow something goes wrong. Indigestion, headaches, sometimes nausea (though I'll admit nausea attacks are fewer and farther between). Pizza and Egg McMuffins are my BFFs right now. Luckily so is my daily oatmeal. I think that is the most nutritious thing I am eating, so I hope it packs a punch.

Anyway, tomorrow or Wednesday I'll have a bigger update, as Tuesday morning I'll go for my NT scan. Depending on the results (they've already done the blood work so we'll know our odds right away), we may stop there, or I might have the CVS done in the afternoon. I'd really rather avoid invasive testing. But if there's anything uncertain or high risk in the results, we'll do it.

So if you have any prayers and/or positive healthy baby vibes to spare, please send them our way!